January 5, 1945

The evening hours of January 5th, 1945, see the next attack of 69 Mosquitos on Berlin. Two of them would not return to their bases that night.

John Foreman is listing a claim for Kurt Welter for the night of January 5th to January 6th, 1945[1] Foreman, John et al.: Luftwaffe Night Fighter Combat Claims; a.a.O., Page 229 – other sources do not.

The two Mosquitos lost are KB397 of No. 142 Sqn. and ML942 of No. 571 Sqn. The first one, flown by F/LT Eichler, is lost over the UK, the second one, flown by F/O Henry is lost over France.

This Mosquito is certainly no candidate for a nocturnal victory of Kurt Welter – although crashing for reasons unknown, she comes down over own territory and as such, an accident is more likely than anything else.

For ML942, the following additional information is available from Barry Blunt’s book “571 Mosquito Bomber Squadron”: according to his account, the Mosquito is damaged by flak while flying over Berlin. One of the engines catches fire and later is lost, also, the aircraft lost all hydraulics. The crew resumes the flight but when heading home, over Belgium, is losing control of the aircraft and finally abandons the Mosquito[2]Blunt, Barry: 571 Mosquito Squadron; 1992.